


Concealed Carry

by BlossomsintheMist



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Brainwashing, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 06:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows how to keep a weapon in good repair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concealed Carry

His shoulder hurts.  He feels it distantly, even though it is a deep, grinding ache, into the very bone, where it was sheered off, replaced with metal and hydraulics wired into him.

It is cold, and he feels that more keenly, deep in the core of him, because he does not remember a time when he did not feel cold.  He thinks he might have once, but it is gone, and immaterial.  He knows who he is, not who he was.

But he knows how to keep a weapon in good repair, he always has, so he stops, winding down from the day’s action, and works his shoulder back, forward, does the exercises the half-remembered, now, handler taught him for when it starts to ache like this, rubs oil into the joints and over the skin of his shoulder, warming it carefully, until the ache starts to fade away.  He sits there for a moment, hand on his own shoulder, tracing the lines of his muscle and flesh, because he can almost remember something, from before that shoulder ended in metal, gleaming and hard, the ghost of another’s hand, a press there, firm and sturdy.

He has things to do.  He gets up abruptly, pulls his shirt back on.  The op isn’t finished yet; he doesn’t have endless time to kill.

Just plenty of other things, he thinks with a wry grin and a shake of his head at himself.

He picks up his guns, his knives, the next morning, sliding them into their places, and his hands fit around them perfectly, and there is no twinge in his shoulder.  Ready to go.  Except that his head aches, he’s gotten the headaches more and more recently.  He frowns, tilts his head to one side, working his jaw as if that will help, and takes a deep breath.  In through your nose, out through your mouth.  He knows these things from before what he can remember.

He figures that means he was meant to do this.  Be what he is.

As weapons go, he’s damn good at it.  It’s not fulfillment, not exactly.  But it’s something.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever had much else.


End file.
